


blü

by velavelavela



Category: Midnighters - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Lesbians!, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Poetry, Trans Male Character, occasionally that is, scott westerfeld did not say gay rights BUT I DID! JUST NOW!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2020-07-31 15:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20117080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velavelavela/pseuds/velavelavela
Summary: BAI: bixby art institute is located in bustling bixby, OK, right near the flats. jessica day transfers into it, majoring in animation, but things get really weird at midnight there.





	1. the taste of tardy

**Author's Note:**

> i read this series in the 6th grade and reread it every year throughout high school but unfortunately have not read it during college so im kinda going off memory but i remember it well, id like to think. will be fact checking when needed.
> 
> anyway, nobody makes content for this, so bitch *I* will!!! this is an art school au but also it's not plotty as of right now, just drabbles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> melissa tastes a tardy student

Melissa’s knack for storytelling most definitely came from vent-and-dream journals wrapping up her thoughts onto paper with a bow when she was younger. It was easy to write down stories when you were pelted with them daily. She sat cross-legged in a beanbag chair in the lounge of the Powell-Smith studios.

The butterscotch of Mandy approaching behind her made notch up her Sleater-Kinney and hold up the flash drive she had borrowed to move files from her old cowpat of a laptop to her new, quick laptop.

Mandy took it from her gloved hand, which then turned into a thumbs-up sign. She felt the laugh and the, _wowMelissa’sdoneitagain_ of a brighter shade of butterscotch (did that make sense? did her mindcasting EVER?) she returned to scribbling aimlessly in her black moleskin with the Sleater-Kinney sticker smack dab in the middle of the front.

Okay, Melissa can admit, Sleater-Kinney was her favorite band. _They fucking slap_.

Suddenly, pennies in the back of her throat— someone just woke up late for their first ever BAI class in the dorms above the studios.

Oh Godspeed. She hadn’t felt that person before. She didn’t push right now, she just opened her message app (13 notifications, nice) and shot Rex a, “yo some new girl’s a midnighter” and then declined the immediate FaceTime request.


	2. LALALALOLA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rex listens to "lola" a lot & loses his glasses

Rex’s cross-campus playlist had at least three different versions of “Lola” by The Kinks on it. He prided himself in his music taste as much as he prided himself in his ACT score (nearly perfect) and his APUSH score (four years ago it was a five). A girl with a fishtail braid bumped into him while he was looking down and changing from one “Lola” to another. His glasses, already loose from him accidentally kicking them onto the floor and a resulting book avalanche while leaning on the back legs of his desk chair and it tipping to catch on the bed, slid down and off his nose like a teardrop.

“I’m so sorry,” he heard over The Raincoats.

He looked at her and saw clarity in a blur, just like wiping a circle in the steaming of the mirrors in the communal bathroom after Rex basted himself in hot, hot shower water. The touch of midnight. She handed him his glasses, and he smiled to not seem creepy for staring at her (although it was mainly the back of her head). As she hurried past, he looked over his shoulder, wishing he had asked her name, but it would’ve been extremely awkward if she weren’t that student Melissa had mentioned earlier. Oh well. The school was small; they’d run into her at the coffeeshop soon enough.


	3. gay daylight normie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> melissa's found jessica's instagram, but rex just wants to get it on

Later that evening on Melissa’s apartment’s couch, just as her gloved hand resting on Rex’s shoulder started suggestively inching up to his neck and his concentration began to wane, she clicked her tongue and moved to where she was sitting up straight and scrolling on her phone. Rex blinked, almost whined, and opened his mouth to ask why she’d stopped before Melissa tasted his thoughts and spoke.

“A, your 18th-19th Century Asian Art syllabus quiz is due in thirty minutes, and if I take off this glove and start choking you, you’ll be out of it for hours. B, I found Jessica’s Instagram. Absolute daylight normie.”

He groaned, shifting his legs and continuing looking at the online quiz with sleepy, somewhat aroused eyes, “her major?” that’s a C, then another C, then a B. Thirty minutes weren’t even needed—

“Maybe I don’t want to choke you tonight, loverboy.”

He shrugged. If she didn’t want to that’s fine. He could shower and go to bed just as easily—

“I was teasing. Anyway, she’s doing creative writing, which I assumed, because she sat in the front of our flash fiction class this afternoon. Also, she has a rainbow flag AND a cowboy emoji in her bio.”

“And that means?”

“Gay but a gay normie.”

Rex sighed.


	4. @jess.day.light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> constanza + college town coffeeshop + befriending jessica, who likes iced coffee like a real gay

There were no sororities at BAI. Constanza would’ve liked a sorority— her mom had been Chi O (really scary in the 70s) so that would’ve given her a leg up when rushing. Not that it mattered. BAI was small as fuck.

Sometimes, she wished she had _deeper_ friendships though. Popular as she was—"popular, HA, you’re at an art school how popular can you get” -mrs grayfoot— she had the few friends she sat with at the caf, grabbed ‘za with on Fridays after class, swapped a roll of TP for a coffee the following week when her rich parents decided to stop cutting her off again for not going to OU.

Not to mention, running the literary journal was interesting but gave her a lot of ass-kissers. It was a boost of confidence and ego. It was not fun when she really thought about it.

Her most common haunt when working on the written bits of her major (fashion! a childhood goal) was the coffeeshop a few blocks from her dorm. She took a few things with her—

  1. macbook
  2. headphones
  3. five bucks for a small black coffee and a croissant
  4. a paper baggie of fresh strawberries she picked up from the farmer’s market on the way

Pulling her legs up to sit on them on a cushion by the window, she noticed a Tulsa frat boy who didn’t know he was supposed to wash his ass every shower across the room smiling at her. Oh, Ricky. No way, mister.

She looked away. She would deal with him at the Tulsa apartment party when she was wasted on Mike’s Hards and with some weed in her system.

A text from “unc ernesto” lit up her phone screen.

hows chi omega?

Okay, fuck you. What’s up?

you know rex greene?

Yeah. Pretentious art history goth. Why?

i need his number for a photography thing

I’ll check the class GC and get back to you.

(read 10:31 AM)

Constanza and Ernesto did the scratch-my-back-and-i’ll-scratch-yours spiel often. Next time she needed edibles she’d text him. Next time he wanted some random classmate’s number, he’d text her. She nibbled a strawberry, scrolling through her Groupmes with one hand and the other fixed on the green petals at the top of the fruit.

rex *chain emoji* — his number on the side. His icon was that one Keith Haring baby drawing.

“Hi,” a voice came from someone whose silhouette had made its way over in the corner of Constanza’s eye.

“Mmm?” Constanza didn’t look up, copying the number and toggling it over to her messages to send to Ernesto.

“You have a BAI sticker on your laptop. I just transferred over—”

“Oh!” Constanza pulled the strawberry from her mouth, suddenly looking up, “Oh, hi! What class?”

“I’m a sophomore,” she said sheepishly, scratching a bit at the baby hairs by her temple. Her hair shone in the morning light that streamed through the windows beside Constanza, shone like pennies, like a blunt-colored fire.

“Ah, that’s why I didn’t meet you during orientation,” she patted the space beside her on the cushion bench, “bring your stuff over! I’m Constanza.”

“Jessica.” She replied, a smile baring her braces, before moving over to grab her laptop and migrate to Constanza.

“I’m a junior. Uhh…” Constanza pressed send, “You caught me at a busy moment, but the classes haven’t heated up with the assignments yet so I’m down to chill. I love your bracelets—” Constanza tilted her head and grinned over her shoulder as she half-closed her laptop.

Jessica looked down at them, as if she had forgotten they were there.

“Oh yeah. My little sister and her friend made them for me before I left. She’s usually a pest, and she didn’t admit that she’d miss me, but I’m from Chicago, so that’s an ‘only visiting for thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring breaks’ kinda thing.”

Colors of thread knit into braids, red & blue & yellow on one, purple & green & indigo on the other.

“DIY kitschy stuff is in,” Constanza nodded sagely, setting her phone to the side.

“…thanks?”

“Nah, kitsch is a good thing, dude. What’s your major?”

“I’m doing creative writing.”

“_SUBMIT_ to the journal here— I run it. A few of our staff just graduated too, if you want to join in,” Jessica shrugged, leaned against the back of the bench, “oh come on! Please?”

“Maybe.” She grinned again, her braces glinting in the light.

“Neat. Thanks, uhhhhhh…” Constanza’s phone began to buzz, Angie’s contact dashed across the screen, “I should take this outside. Won’t be long.”

It was 45 minutes long. Jessica left at the 30 mark, giving a small wave and mouthing “sorry” and god, Angie should be the sorry one, info dumping bullshit on her like this and taking time out of her day.

_Yeahokaywhatevergo-offiguessangie_

Constanza spoke into her earbuds’ mic, scrolling Instagram with a thumb. Jessica came up after typing simply “Jess,” her username jess.day.light with an image of the back of her head, the sun painting the left of it, her shoulder bare and freckled. Hoooo, a cute girl with a cute Instagram. Follow req. Constanza was _extremely_ too gay to be at an art school.


	5. interlude 1: "loverboy"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> poem. melissa & rex. childhood

it's time to  
feed your cat the  
wet food-- not in  
his bowl but from the  
can. he'll sort it out.

remember that time  
it started pouring on  
us at the park at 11:45 pm so  
we made out under  
the metal slide? your slick  
body, my itchy tongue,  
our waterlogged shoes--  
so you stripped to your  
bra and underwear.  
we couldnt get the  
lighter to work, and i  
felt so horrible in  
my jacket but not horrible  
enough to peel it off and  
touch you more

remember that time  
a homeless man caught  
you and jonathan with  
your hands resting together  
between you on the park  
bench and called you a   
faggot and you facetimed me  
with your face in happy  
lines because you  
passed for the  
first time in 18 years?

use the can opener in the  
drawer under the  
microwave.


	6. blueworld

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> baby's first secret hour

The night after she met Constanza and helped the eboy on the sidewalk with his glasses, it rained, hard. And Jessica had her period. And she had reading to do. So, as it happened, she was curled up under her pink comforter on the bottom bunk in her dorm, reading through her textbook with one hand when the rain ceased, the air conditioning unit stopped humming, the thumping of music from a room somewhere to her left stopped abruptly, and blue washed over the room.

Her roommate was flying in from some STEM conference later that week; Jessica was very alone. What kind of prank was this? Shrooms in the water? Jessica stretched her legs back out, all the way down to her toes like a cat, and lay there for another moment before reaching for her phone.

It lit up as she touched the home button, brightness in the otherwise dark blue world, but she had no service. It wasn’t like she needed light— her surroundings were blue with no shadows, blue like berries and duct tape, usually both employed in her kitchen back in Chicago. Mrs. Day making pancakes, Beth making bags and wallets out of tape to sell at school.

Maybe it was time to go to sleep.

Jessica made sure her alarms were set, and, relishing in the silence, drifted off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry @ the 1 person who's probably reading this for never updating. here's some jess


End file.
